The Witch is in the Details Read online

  “If we’re right about Cindy, then it’s surely a done deal.”

  Zinnia’s features drooped. “Yeah, I guess. But I don’t want it to go down like that. I want the mill to reopen because we came up with a great plan.”

  Both of them turned as a car pulled up. The first thought—a potential customer—quickly faded as they saw the brown-and-white of a sheriff’s car. Deputy Keith Schwenk strode over to the bookstore.

  “Are you in trouble, Nann, or does that deputy have a thing for you?”

  Nann felt her face color. “I’m consulting. An expert witness. Helping out.”

  “Yeah, right!” Zinnia laughed. “You’re into him.”

  “Am not!”

  “Are, too!”

  The door dinged and Keith stepped in. “Hey, Nann, Zinnia.”

  “Hey,” Zinnia said. “Let me give you two some privacy.”

  Nann started, “You don’t need—”

  “Thanks. Sorry to interrupt your lunch,” Keith said.

  At the door, behind Keith’s back, Zinnia made a kissy face at Nann.

  But Nann wasn’t amused. Worried—a little. Nervous—a lot. “Am I in trouble?”

  “No.” Keith took the office chair vacated by Zinnia.

  “You want half of a tuna sandwich?”

  The deputy dove right in. “Last night at three a.m., the department received a call from the Port Argent B&B. They received a call from Marilyn Fitzgerald.”

  “Related to Joe Fitzgerald?”

  Keith nodded. “His daughter. She got a strange call from him. She called the front desk, they called us. He was dead by the time we arrived.”

  “Shut. The truck. Off.” Nann gaped. “Are you being totally serious right now?”

  “As serious as I can be. The coroner’s office wasn’t busy. They performed an autopsy first thing this morning. The COD was nephritis—kidney disease.”

  Not a murder, Nann thought. But neither was Roger Paine. There could be only one reason Deputy Schwenk had come to see her.

  “You found a poppet.”

  Keith nodded. “We found a poppet with a hat pin transecting the lower back. Same place as Joe Fitzgerald’s catastrophically failed kidney.”

  A lot of what Nann did as a practicing Druid was explaining away magic to normal people. She took a shot. “Maybe someone has access to the board’s medical records. If they knew that Roger Paine had a congenital heart defect, and Joe Fitzgerald had kidney problems, it would be easy to make it look like voodoo.”

  “I can’t believe both of them dying here, in Amity Corners, is a coincidence. Given that patient information is protected...” Keith trailed off.

  Nann couldn’t believe it was easier for a cop to believe in voodoo than hacked medical records. She tried again. “Think about it. There’s a lot at stake here. It’s not just about the mill. It’s about control of a yuge company. That has to be stressful. Stress can really do a number on you. I’m no doctor, but maybe it could even kill you, if you already had some ailment.”

  After a few moments, Keith finally nodded. “Maybe. At least it’s an avenue I can pursue. It’s just—”

  Nann waited. Just what? Several heartbeats passed before he shook his head with a chuckle. “Nothing. Thanks for your time, Nann. I’ll see you around.”

  Keith Schwenk walked back to his car, Nann’s eyes following. Was she looking at his butt? No, no she wasn’t. Of course not. She was just freaked out.

  Two people murdered by magic. Cindy was running around loose. There was a poppet with her likeness, hopefully still secure in police custody. But given time, another doll could be constructed. Did Cindy know Nann was a Druid? Even if it was just that Nann was extremely knowledgeable in the occult, it still might be enough to want her dead. Who killed Roger Paine and Joe Fitzgerald? Cindy Paine. How? With sympathetic magic. The cops would never go for it. That didn’t mean Cindy didn’t want to cover her tracks.

  She was so deep in thought that she started at a voice.

  “How’d it go? Did he ask you out?”

  Zinnia had returned. From her change in expression, Nann figured her own face must look pretty freaked.

  “Jeeze Louise, what happened?”

  “Joe Fitzgerald is dead. I’m pretty sure Cindy killed him.”

  For a long while, Zinnia stared, mouth wide. “But why? Why would she if she has control of the company?”

  “I have no idea.” Nann told her about the Nann-poppet, about the ceremonies she prepared. She didn’t think it was enough.

  “Isn’t there some way to suck the power out of her? Not hurt her, just shut her down?” Zinnia asked.

  “Not any way I know.”

  “But it would be a good thing, not a bad thing. It could keep her from hurting you, or anyone else.” Zinnia held up her hands. “No bad karma.”

  “Maybe. I’ll go through my aunt’s library. She must’ve come across a similar problem.” But Nann had doubts. Nann’s magic was a huge part of her own life. If you took that away, it would definitely hurt.

  AFTER CLOSING, NANN drove home. She dragged herself to the dining room, pushed the big table out of the way, and entered the Lady Lair through the secret trap door. As she moved to the altar and books behind it, she heard Pokey’s hooves on the floor above, running back and forth.

  That pig.

  Ignoring him, she studied the titles. Druids didn’t commit anything to writing, but plenty of others wrote about Druids. Julius Caesar, for instance, Pliny the Elder and Cicero. Most of that was anti-Druid propaganda, of course, and had sent Druids underground for centuries. But in the 1700s, Druids came up from the underground. Pagans became a fad for some reason. One such pogonophile, Decimus Oldershaw-Pickles, had written several volumes of Druid lore that partially inspired the Neo-Druid movement. Nann paged through the strange and dense texts.

  Upstairs, she heard Pokey scramble across the kitchen tile, the hardwood floors. These books were tough enough without a pig tap dancing over your head. “Pokey, knock it off!”

  Nann read on. There were many depictions of a mistletoe harvest followed by the sacrifice of white bulls. The oak grove surrounding the ceremonial circle in the back yard had a little bit of a dwarf mistletoe infestation. She certainly didn’t have any white bulls standing around.

  Pokey raced from one end of the house to the other. Nann’s teeth clenched. She did have a pint-sized pig she could sacrifice. “Hey! Stop it!”

  When the clatter stopped, she held the book on her lap and let it drop open randomly. The chapter dealt with the daughter of an Arch-Druid. Tlachtga—how did you even pronounce that?—was associated with sacred stones. Was this helpful? She read on about the red-haired Druidess. A poem, or perhaps a spell, caught her attention.

  As once the great Tlachtga found

  Creature a thousand eons gone

  Softness recast in rocks of bone

  Absorption in bodies now stone.

  That sounded kind of on the right track, at least the absorption part. Rocks of bone, she mused, bodies of stone—that sounded like fossils. Softness recast, absorption... she went into a semi trance, keeping the poem in front of her eyes. It meant something to her, something important. If she just went deep enough—

  Pokey clattered down the secret stairs, grunted at her, and raced back up again. Nann tossed the book on the altar and went after him. “Why are you acting so crazy? I’m trying to work, here.”

  In the dining room, he turned to face her, oinking. Nann switched on the radio.

  “¿Vamos a la casa de tu amigo? Esta noche es la luna nueva,” Pokey said.

  “What?” Nann stared at the pig. Then she got it. She turned the tuning dial on the radio a fraction.

  “Aren’t we going to your friend’s place? Tonight’s the new moon.”

  Nann sighed. She hadn’t missed a new moon tea with Charlotte the vampire since arriving. Her Aunt Nancy had begun the tradition, and Nann liked to keep it going. The creature was trapped in Cemetery Center, b
ut had a nice apartment on the third floor. Still, she had to be bored up there. “I’m too beat, Pokey. I was up really late last night.”

  His head angled. “Making more pig necklaces?”

  “Something like that.” Nann had more to worry about than Charlotte’s lonliness. There was a voodoo practitioner out there to deal with.

  “You never take me anywhere,” Pokey said. “Nancy did. We went all over the place.”

  Nann gave the pig a hard squint. “You just wanna go there because she sneaks you cookies.”

  Pokey lowered his head, eyes sad. “Whatever are you talking about?”

  Nann knew she was being manipulated. She broke down anyway. “Fine. We’ll go have tea with Charlotte. If I catch you sneaking snacks, you’re grounded.”

  MARQUISE CHARLOTTE already had the antique silver tea setting out when Nann and Pokey arrived. The vampire’s hair was in the usual Marie Antoinette up-do, but she dressed in a long leopard print blouse over ripped up skinny jeans and sensible red flats. Her alabaster skin and ruby red lips were natural, not a touch of makeup. When she thought Nann wasn’t looking, she side-armed a cookie to Pokey. He caught it and hurried out of sight.

  “Pokey shouldn’t have cookies,” Nann said.

  “C’est ça, oui, a fat pig. C’est fou!”

  While Nann didn’t speak French, she certainly understood sarcasm. Charlotte’s big screen TV was visible from the dining room. It was paused on a show.

  “‘La Mante,’” Charlotte nodded to the screen. “Do you want to watch? It’s quite dark.”

  Nann poured Charlotte a cup of tea. The vampire took a tiny vial from around her neck and added a drop of red. Eew. “Actually, I was going to ask you about some of the more prominent families around here.”

  “Prominent? You mean the nouveau riche mill people? Have you seen the so-called Millionaires’ Row recently? Disgraceful.”

  Pokey wandered in, looked hopefully at Charlotte; then at Nann’s stern face. He wandered away again.

  “Those huge houses, chopped up into horrible, tiny apartments. Neglected. An eyesore on the shore. Once, the mill owners all lived on that bluff. Now, only the Miller residence remains. The others moved south, mainly to New Orleans. Oh, how I would love to visit there.” Charlotte smiled, showing her pointy teeth.

  Nann’s spine crawled a little. “Brock Miller still lives here?”

  “Bien sûr. In the very last house on the street. I believe he is away most of the time, yet he always returns.”

  “Why?”

  “His daughters, his wife, they are buried in the cemetery. The new one, not—” She made a circle with her index finger. The site where Amity Center now stood used to be an Indian mound, then a mass grave for an ill-fought battle during the French and Indian War, then the local cemetery surrounding a church. The church burned down several times. Amity Center was built on the site. Yet the grounds remained consecrated. This is what kept Charlotte imprisoned in the building.

  “His wife Mildred was good friends with your Great-Aunt Nancy,” Charlotte went on.

  “Was she a Druid?”

  “I do not believe so, but she had a deep interest in magic. Perhaps it was her illness, or the loss of her two daughters. She was interested in Spiritualism, and spent much time in Lily Dale. I suppose it would be a comfort, communicating with your lost children. Even though she still had her son.”

  “Brock Miller has a son living here?”

  “In the swamp. Apparently, he shared much of his mother’s magic interest. Since his mother’s death, he has taken up the mantle of the swamp witch.” Charlotte shrugged. “À chacun ses goûts—to each his own.”

  Swamp witches, as well as their hermit counterparts, jungle, forest and copse witches, were looked down upon by social witches like Druids and coven witches. They were the fairy tale witches, herbalists and mycologists, potion-makers, who worked alone with no particular moral compass. They could be healers or poisoners, sometimes both; midwives or child thieves.

  “Well, that’s surprising. It ties Brock Miller to magic. What about the Paines? Any magical ties in that family?”

  “Only the magic of money,” Charlotte smirked. She pushed a plate across the table. “Scone?”

  Where the heck did a trapped vampire get scones? Of course, you could get just about everything from the internet now. Nann took a bite. Pretty good. “Others on the board, do you know if they were ever involved in magic?”

  “Rumor had it,” Charlotte smiled and leaned forward, “that there was once a coven made up of higher-ups at the mill. Of course, that was decades ago.”

  “Higher-ups, like board members?”

  “Who can say?” Charlotte added another drop of mail-order blood to her tea. “Coven witches like their secrecy. But it would not surprise me that any of the board members used a bit of hocus pocus to lift their status.”

  POKEY LAID ON HIS SIDE for the drive home, breathing heavily. Nann was a little worried, but also a little I-told-you-so. She turned on Cricket’s radio. “Too many cookies, Pokey?”

  “Whatever do you mean?” Pokey groaned through the speakers.

  Nann drove on, thinking aloud. “If Brock’s son is a swamp witch, it ties Brock Miller to magic. Charlotte said she suspected a board member to be part of the old coven. Maybe the son is making poppets for his father?”

  “Sounds like a reach. I think you need to get some sleep, Nann.”

  She was beyond exhausted. “Maybe I should talk to the swamp witch. How can I track him down? Where would he hang out?”

  “Probably at Hot Topic, or maybe Spencer’s, in the mall.”

  Nann actually considered this for a moment before side-eyeing the pig.

  “Maybe west of town,” Pokey said, a sigh in his radio voice. “In the swamp?”

  Oh. Right. There was some sort of wildlife refuge on the other side of the little bay. She really did need some sleep.

  “You need to get out more,” Pokey said.

  “Road trip!”

  The pig lifted his head. “Road trip to a swamp?”

  “You wanted to get out more. Josh Gates and Jeremy Wade visit lots of swamps.”

  Pokey closed his squinty little eyes. “I think I have some important rooting to do tomorrow.”

  She parked Cricket in the garage and zombie-walked to her room. Pokey only made it as far as the kitchen before collapsing. Nann kicked off her sneakers and fell into bed with her clothes on. In the morning, she awoke naked, shoes back on her feet. Stress, she figured.

  Once again, she dreamed of the magician doing magic tricks. This time, she had seen only his gloved hands, the blue ring, the ace of spades.

  When she picked up her dream diary, however, she noted two words had already been written: fossil sponge. “Ah ha!”

  Pokey, who had made it to the bedroom sometime during the night, jumped up, staring wildly. With no radio on, he oinked a question at her.

  “Tlachtga’s poem. It makes sense now. Softness cast in rocks of bone—what else could it be?”

  Pokey made noises that sounded more sarcastic and lowered his head to his paws. Nann ignored him, feeling energized and fully awake. She padded to the shower, wondering what to wear to a swamp.

  In the kitchen, she charged her cup of coffee as Pokey wandered sleepily in. The pig looked a little hung over.

  “You want to eat, or are you still too full of cookies?”

  The radio was on in the dining room. “I don’t know of these cookies you speak of.”

  She set to chopping vegetables from a basket on the counter. “Special treat for you.”

  “Hostess cupcakes?”

  Nann put the bowl on the floor. “Sweet potatoes. Or maybe yams. Nice crunchy carrots.”

  Pokey slunk over to the food, took a bite, and sat on his haunches. He belched. “Better save some for later if you’re still going to the swamp.”

  “You still don’t want to go?”

  Pokey shook his head. “Nancy used to vi
sit Grizelda, the witch who used to live there. The woman never had snacks.”

  “Maybe Brock’s son has snacks.”

  The pig made a snort the radio didn’t translate. “Nancy used to bring care packages to Grizelda.”

  “Oh, what a nice idea. What kinds of things should I bring?”

  Pokey angled his head, thinking. “Soap. Air freshener. Hand sanitizer. Bug spray.”

  Nann sipped her coffee, eyeing the pig. “Why would a witch need these things?”

  “Oh, those are for you. A witch would just want something to eat that isn’t... swampy.”

  Chapter 9

  Grabbing a full thermos and her conjure bag, she hopped in Cricket and headed west. Amity Corners was east of Port Argent. She hadn’t been this way since she was a kid. Down the bluff, the west side of town petered out, becoming a few closed concessions stands on Argent Bay State Beach. One shop, a bait shop, remained opened for fishermen. They had pre-made sandwiches. A gift for the witch.

  Continuing on, the trees thickened, then diminished into black, skeletal limbs reaching from dark water. Definitely a swamp. A few miles later, she took Chokeberry Hill Road north toward the lake. It dead-ended in hefty logs that barred vehicles from passing. She looked at a sign about hiking, the area off-limits after dark.

  She wore her tall Wellington boots for the adventure. They were waterproof. They also made it hard to work the pedals. She hadn’t considered actually hiking in them. Cricket seemed to sense her dilemma. The little four-wheeler zipped around the barricade and drove slowly along a walking path.

  “I don’t think this is legal, Cricket.”

  Cricket chimed the open-door alarms, assuring her. Any other car would get hemmed in by the closeness of the path, but Cricket was tiny. As they arrived at a fork, Cricket idled. The right turn signal blinked, and then the left—a question.

  “I don’t know which way, either,” Nann admitted. Thinking for a moment, she grabbed the Athame from the underside of her conjure bag. Carefully, she balanced it on her index finger. She frequently used the small knife to detect magic. Would it work this way? It didn’t take long for the blade to slowly move. Like a compass needle or a divining rod, it pointed to the left fork. Nann flicked the left turn signal, and Cricket took off.